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37.57% Learning To Live As A Cultivator / Chapter 121: Chapter One Hundred And Twenty One - I discover a concubines jade beads.

Chapter 121: Chapter One Hundred And Twenty One - I discover a concubines jade beads.

When Leon had used Mothtails in the past, he hadn't really paid much attention to their colouring; too concerned with making pills. If it were not for him worrying about the side effects and impurities of his average pills, he likely would never have concerned himself with these variations nor the differences that could be found in other types of herbs.

Partially from Leo's notes and partially from the meagre details in the books he'd read at the library, he knew that mothtails did not grow particularly tall, it's slightly curled leaves would form in clusters at the end of each tender stem or branch from the main shoot and it's flowers were dusty red, caterpillar-like buds growing at the stem's tip. And from what he could see with his own eyes, the flower only developed when the clustered leaves were also red. It was like the whole leafy bunch represented the flower... no he rather thought that it was the flower converted from its leaves and that the 'flower' was a stamen covered in pollen like with lilies!

But would that not mean that alchemists had been mixing petals into the burning energy and burning blood pills?

He thought about this for a moment, then looked at the root crop of the plant. They varied from plant to plant, thick and almost woody to tender white roots, the former were probably older roots, developed as the herb aged, while the white roots were newly formed. The mostly green herbs had more white roots, even if they had a lot of woody roots also. But he wondered if the type of root used in the clear and cloudy Spiritual pills would alter the resultant pill slightly.

With this in mind, Leon arranged the herbs even further; cutting root crops from the plant and dividing those plants with the most tender, newly formed roots from those with a large outcrop of old roots and those with a little of both kept to one side. With these, he would create a batch of Cloudy Spiritual pills as was his task.

Before he began making pills, he took a moment to stir the Serene Milk Salts potion, noticing it was more difficult than last time and hard clumps were forming in the liquid.  Then, he set his cleaned cauldron onto his iron stove and made three batches of Cloudy Spiritual pills with four or five pills in each batch, taking breaks in between to turn attention to the potion.  The Serene Milk salts had no set time in which it took to be complete, it was more once most of the liquid had vanished and large fist size crystals could be removed from the keg.  The crystals were ground coarsely and stored, ready for use.

Leon found that he had a fair amount of pure white tiny salt crystals at the end of the 'potion' making. However, unlike what he expected (and maybe hoped) the refined salt didn't have the same taste as the condiment he craved, it was much more soapy, floral, totally unsuitable for consumption. It could only be used as it was meant to be used; for making pills and bath soak. In this case, for making Still Mind Pills.

The Still Mind pill used the salt and four herbs, only one of which he was familiar with; silver nettle tea. The others were five-petal radiant knotweed, nibblet-bane, and concubines jade-beads. He frowned at the name of the last herb, it was strange and therefore memorable.

Later, a trip to the library would uncover a myth about a low ranked concubine of the Dragon Emperor's who loved her husband, but was not treasured in return. Her tears would water her favourite jade bead bracelet every night and the string that held them together became worn from where she played with the bracelet in comfort. The bracelet broke in the palace gardens and the beads planted themselves, thus becoming a new herb. Leon thought the story sappy and thought the concubine very pitiful, but his logical mind still couldn't understand the name of the plant. It looked nothing like a broken bracelet of jade beads.

Regardless, it was a succulent, thus had small, fat oval leaves filled with liquid. He had to smash these small leaves until their watery sap pooled in his bowl, then the liquid filled the bottom of his cauldron and was heated gently. After it began to simmer, he then added a measurement of the salts, waited a minute or so longer before adding the nibblet-bane and knotweed herbs, though just the leaves of each. The leaves slowly dissolved and he used his spiritual energies to slowly stir the mixture, using a strong tea made of silver nettle to prevent it from drying out and burning, until it began to form into clumps. These clumps were then focused upon, spinning by themselves as they absorbed the rest of the mixture and formed pills. With his already practiced control, he did not find this step difficult. He produced six pills that could be considered slightly above average in quality, surprising himself.

But he didn't think too much over it as a yawn overcame him, just bottled the little pale green pills and retired to his bed, calling it a night.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Ebonsolaris Ebonsolaris

This is a double update. Chapter 1 of 2 x

Chapter 122: Chapter One Hundred And Twenty Two - I improve a pill accidently

Teacher Sagi had been sufficiently pleased with the ten Cloudy Spiritual pills that Leon gave to him and even more so with the Still Mind Pills which had reduced impurities if compared to a standard Still Mind Pills.  Even one concocted by himself might be of exceptional quality, but retain the expected amount of impurities.  Naturally, he wanted to know how Leon had accomplished this.

Leon admitted he wasn't sure, it had been his first time concocting the pills after all.  So the Teacher had him recite the recipe he used, patiently listening as Leon nervously stuttered through it, but the Teacher could see no differences in his method to the written one.  So Teacher Sagi considered this again for a moment and then asked about the Serene Milk salts.  Again Leon had to tell him the method he had used and it was here that the difference became apparent. 

It was not the keg being used, though Teacher Sagi was surprised that Leon had purchased his own.  Admittedly, apprentices in the outer school had limited access to supplementary equipment such as this and pill making stoves (to which they never touched at all) , most students had to rely on using their cauldron or a borrowed second.  But even if kegs were readily available to perhaps second years and above, they would not reduce the number of impurities, just stop them from increasing!

What Leon had done to achieve this difference was such an insignificant step, yet exciting the same to an old hand like Teacher Sagi and this was to boil the water first!

Commoners had been boiling water to make it safe to drink for centuries that or they would brew beer, mead and wines to drink rather than risk illness.  Wealthy folk relied on others to produce water for them, that had likely been treated before consumption and they would not know any better.  Whether it was fair or not, for those centuries, the vast majority of alchemists stemmed from wealthier families.  Even had they not, newcomers would follow the teachings of their Masters and not consider deviating from the recipe.  Older Cultivators that had experience could fast and poor water would not effect them regardless, so boiling had become unnecessary and they would not think of all it could hide.  Thus this one little additional step had never been considered for pill making.

Teacher Sagi excitedly dismissed Leon after praising him profusely, wanting to test the Serene Milk salts recipe for himself and the subsequent pill recipes that required it as an ingredient.  He said that Leon's four days were well earned and to come see him at the start of the next week.  Leon thanked him and agreed, also wanting to scurry back to work on his own experiments.

Leon had stuck to making the two basic variations; burning energy pills and clear Spiritual pills before batching them into three.  Each had one pill of each extreme and a standard pill.  For example; the burning energy pills he had made were either a vivid, scarlet red, a mottled pill with various shades of red or a deep, dark burgundy colour.  The first was a pill using only the bright red petal-leaves, the last was produced with just green leaves.  And the mottled pill was what the burning energy pill usually looked like.  He had never made burning blood pills, the slightly stronger variation of this pill that would be of use to cultivators of both Sun and Jin Li's levels, so didn't want to experiment with them yet.

As for the clear spiritual pills, these were all like clear marbles, however the one made of all tender roots appeared as if it had been polished until gleaming and the one made of all woody roots looked a little distorted within.  It had definitely been more work using the woody roots as well, they did not dissolve as well or as easily as the tender roots, needing just a little more heat beneath them.  This meant he had to carefully separate them from the rest of the herbs or they would cause the whole pot to fail.  He'd never noticed this before as it seemed the tender roots would set off the reaction in the woody roots making this tiny difference unnecessary when using a standard recipe.

With this knowledge, he had also made a few sets of Cloudy Spiritual pills using the three variations.  The first pill came out with a soft translucency, the standard pill was more like swirling mist and the last was almost smoky.  Leon sighed looking over the three pills and their variations once more; he knew there was likely a difference between pills, but he had no clue on how to judge this.  Unlike the pills Leo had improved, these could not be tested on animals nor beasts, the pills were for human cultivators thus really needed human test subjects.  But Leon had not the heart to test these pills on anyone or anything!

Pouting, he pushed the problem aside, thinking he would consider the situation again in the morning.  Perhaps he could ask Jin Li if he had any ideas, but knowing that man he would likely suggest threatening first years into taking them!

Jin Li sneezed while contemplating how to resolve his own recent issue... who was talking ill of him...?


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Ebonsolaris Ebonsolaris

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